a story worth repeating

[hbeaton]

H-beaton, thanx for chiming in. A few thoughts:



Question: Why can't doing the "right thing" in cases like that, be to a) avoid just that one park, or b) avoid just that one individual ? I don't see how trying to get every last person to love and approve of us, is necessarily the "right thing".



Well, yes. That's the legal world of laws and rules purposefully written vaguely/broadly. SO AS TO APPLY to a myriad of circumstances which *could* arise in the field. Because it's impossible to write laws to address every conceivable thing that someone *might* do. That's why we have laws that do things like forbid "annoyances", etc.... So that that way, a LEO can do his job in the field, for varieties of things that arise.

So while those "morph" things could or might apply to md'ing (we "remove", we "disturb", we affect cultural, etc...) yet the fact that various things *could* be morphed to apply does not, to me, mean that the solution-to-such is: to go seeking clarifications and attention. Because otherwise, you might just become a victim of the: "No one cared .... TILL you asked" psychology. Yes I sympathize with the uncomfortable feeling that the OP encountered.

Fine, doing the "right thing" can also mean avoidance of a previously aforementioned negative experience/person so as to assuage any future fear of hunting that site but really? really? I'm for the concept of letting sleeping dogs (pigs?) lie but in the OP case it just seems that drawing the apparent ire of the local honchos has just as much to do with them propping up existing though probably seldom enforced archaic ambiguous regulations and just as much to do with their general disdain and maybe that of the greater public (who do not metal detect) to looking down at our hobby as some sort of glorified vandalism of the public grounds everyone should enjoy. I dislike that thought with a passion. And you know why? It's ignorance on the part of those who do not even want to try and understand our hobby but just turn their nose up at it or give me a bunch of crap for no reason when I am not directly affecting their activities. You're right, I don't think we need to get everyone to love and approve of us but I think it would be awesome if through some cognitive whatever, a shift toward the positive for our activity could be achieved across a wide legislative level and not just in specific localities. Maybe that's just wishful thinking. Put in other more succinct words...I should not have to tip toe around every possible metal detecting site (excluding areas we know we can't detect) because of what some official might do. I can't really have my cake and eat it too save a miracle but I can dream.



With regard to the morphing debate, again, it seems that the hang up is having to seek approval at all for fear that disapproval will be so swift as to spoil the bunch for all of us when we can simply avoid one specific situation and enjoy that other 99% of "not that park/not that guy" area of metal detecting. That's simple enough to do and I totally get that philosophy. I just want to be able to enjoy my hobby with same fervor as people enjoy other hobbies.

 

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